Chat - Archer Mayor [56]
Barrows had been at his own console when Joe entered, and he now waved at his screen in explanation. “Just been following up on that,” he said. “I got the software to get around the password. Hit pure gold. For one thing, he’s cooking the books—the legit stuff is what we saw at the shop; the kickbacks and bill padding and bogus work claims are all behind the password. When everyone gets out of the hospital, I’d seriously recommend you get another mechanic.”
Joe opened his mouth to respond, and to ask about Leo’s car, but Rob was clearly building up steam and continued instead with “I also found out that somebody at Steve’s has been filling his time with more than cars. I made a copy of his hard drive and transferred it to my computer so I wouldn’t be tampering with evidence, but take a look at this.”
He turned to the machine and began moving around from window to window, talking as he went. “Whoever’s behind the password’s been using one of the more popular chat rooms, in part looking for old car parts, but some other, much more interesting stuff as well.”
He paused to cast a glance at Joe. “I won’t bore you with all the computer geek stuff unless you’re into that.”
“Not me,” Joe assured him, focusing on the screen. “But you said, ‘whoever’s behind the password.’ You don’t know?”
“I know Dan Griffis posted the profile using his real name, but technically, until we get more proof, he could claim somebody else did that to frame him. I just said what I did to be cautious, but do I think it’s Dan? Sure. To be honest, old Barrie McNeil didn’t look like he had the smarts to do more’n turn the thing on, if that.
“Anyhow,” Barrows resumed, “I used a forensic software program we got to not only look at what he’s been up to, but to read his supposed ‘deleted’ files, too. You can see he calls himself CarGuy—cute—and that he plays here a lot. I found more chats than I can shake a stick at, and most of it’s recent.”
The computer’s cursor moved nervously across the screen, opening windows, closing others, almost as if it had a mind of its own, Rob narrating as it went along.
“A ton of this is pretty boring, so I went to the picture files as soon as I found a reference to a snapshot CarGuy wanted his contact to see. Worth a thousand words, right?” He laughed briefly as the computer burst forth with color photographs, primarily pornographic.
“So far, so good,” he commented contentedly, “but not too surprising, either. Usual raunchy stuff. Until . . .” He paused while he scrolled to the right set of pictures. “ . . . You get to this—it’s what he was referring to in his chat.”
He sat back to allow Joe a full view of several baggies of white powder, neatly arranged on a tabletop for their portrait.
“Heroin, I’m guessing,” Rob announced. “I already cross-checked with the back-and-forth that led me here. CarGuy is dealing drugs on the side. I captured a whole conversation where he and SmokinJoe—whoever he is—set up a buy that took place two days ago.”
Joe straightened and looked elsewhere to adjust his eyesight for a moment. “Did you . . . ?”
But Rob cut him off. “Get warrants for all this? Yep. Step by step, all the way down the line. I’ve been calling the SA as I go, making sure everything’s legal.”
Joe nodded. “Okay. That’s all I was wondering.”
Rob was smiling broadly. “There’s more, of course. Other deals, other dealers, other pictures. I doubt our office’ll get to play with any of it for long. Maybe the drug task force will want it, or even the feds—I’ll let the sheriff duke that out—but it’s a cool start, and I love that we’re the ones who got it going.”
He returned to the keyboard. Given Rob’s high spirits, Joe felt bad that he was, by contrast, mostly disappointed. Nothing mentioned so far tied Dan Griffis or the garage to what